Chapter 1
Iruka kicked absently at a small stone as he wandered an empty path toward the cemetery. The village was largely still asleep on this side of town, or maybe they were all sheltered away.
He gave the stone at his feet another tap, watching it skim through one of the puddles a few yards ahead with a soft clatter. The water rippled in a shimmer of too bright sunlight. Already it was almost too hot to be outside, the breeze blowing over puddled pools of rainwater left it only just barrable.
It wasn’t often that he visited the Memorial Stone before school.
Typically, his visits were limited to late afternoons on days when his parents had been heavy in his mind. That happened more frequently in the late summer. He wasn’t quite sure why. Something about that time of year seemed to make moments from his early childhood feel more tangible. Not in a sad way necessarily, mostly it was just overwhelming. The suffocating weight of the heat, the droning of insects, the saturated caress of rushing wind before a violent storm. Sensations etched upon his soul.
He would breathe in the scent of trampled grass and be thrown back to a dark training field, remembering the time he was there with his mother to catch fireflies while his father was out on a mission. He would walk past the river, smell the sun-dried algae and remember poking through the slime choaked bank with his father, looking for water bugs. The memories would catch in his throat, almost dizzying. They weren’t his happiest memories, just little moments where he was carefree. Memories he didn’t know he would someday cling to. Repeating in his mind until he could sufficiently distract himself or visit the Memorial Stone and allow himself to let them go.
On this occasion he’d been up most of the night thinking about them. Trapped in memories of power outages, soft candle lighting, and playing games as thunder rumbled outside his window. Exhausting, sure, but he couldn’t bring himself to resent it, they were precious memories and he was glad to have them but he also couldn’t afford to walk around half stuck in the past.
He gave the stone one final kick. It tumbled out of sight into the long grass along the walkway.
As he crossed the threshold into the cemetery, the chunin was surprised to see another shinobi already there. The presence of Hatake Kakashi at the Memorial Stone was not entirely shocking, growing up Iruka had heard whispers that the jounin slept in the cemetery and talked to the Stone like it talked back to him. Even more quiet whispers indicated that he’s lost his mind, that the only people he could tolerate were ghosts. Regardless, Iruka himself had never crossed paths with Kakashi at the Memorial Stone. Technically speaking, he still hadn’t because Kakashi was not standing in front of the Stone, he was standing below a nearby tree, staring up into the branches. The jounin looked over as Iruka neared, waving him closer when he hesitated, eyes returning to whatever had captured his attention up the tree.
Iruka approached cautiously, his interactions with Kakashi were few and far between. Kakashi was an odd man to be sure, but in an untouchable shinobi sort of way. Despite the bleak rumors about him, Iruka had never been given any reason to personally fear Sharingan Kakashi. In fact, he was one of the very few people to show any manner of—if not kindness than at least some measure of humanity—toward Naruto. So, he couldn’t be all bad, right?
Turning his attention from the white-haired man to the tree he was staring at, he was startled to see the limbs of a small body hanging over the sides of one of the thicker branches. His heart lurched. With a few fast leaps Iruka perched on one of the adjacent tree limbs, peering down at what was—thankfully—a sleeping Naruto and not a dead child, as he had initially feared. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d happened upon the body of a child hidden in the landscape. Kakashi was at his side a moment later.
Naruto was sprawled over the branch in a position that could not possibly be comfortable, his head was tipped back against the bark and limbs dangling below him. He was wearing a different set of clothes than he’d had on yesterday in class. Iruka wondered if he had any intention of visiting home before making his way to the academy.
“I saw him sleeping on the roof of the academy the other day,” Kakashi said without preamble, his voice soft, like he didn’t want to risk waking the slumbering Jinchuriki. “And last month I saw him sleeping in one of the trees near the training fields.”
Iruka grimaced. “Thank you for telling me, Kakashi-san, I’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”
Kakashi nodded. “I’ll leave it to you then, sensei,” he drawled before disappearing with a silent flutter of leaves.
Iruka watched the leaves as they drifted down toward the Memorial Stone. His parents would have to wait for another day, it seemed distraction was the path forward.
Crouching down, the teacher reached out and shook Naruto by the shoulder. He knew from classroom experience that Naruto was a fairly heavy sleeper but the moment he touched the kid, Naruto launched himself upward, arms going up defensively. He would have flung himself from the tree if Iruka hadn’t caught him.
Glancing wildly around, Naruto blinked the sleep from his eyes, squinting at the face before him. “Iruka-sensei? Why are you here?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Iruka said, withdrawing his hands to place them on his own hips. “Why aren’t you at home?”
“Ah well,” Naruto rubbed the back of his head with a slightly nervous laugh. “I was running around last night and got tired! It was too far to go home so I, um, I just slept here.”
“You shouldn’t sleep outside like this. It’s not safe. What if you’d fallen out of this tree?”
“I’m fine! See!” He leapt dramatically to his feet, teetering a moment before stabilizing triumphantly. “Besides, I heal fast.”
“That’s not the point,” Iruka sighed, jumping down from the tree, lifting his arms for Naruto to fall into, which he did with a soft grunt. “How often do you do this?” Iruka pressed when the blond was securely back on solid ground.
“Huh?”
“How often do you sleep outside?”
“I dunno, sometimes. It’s fine! Nothing bad’s ever happened. Not really. And besides I’m fast!”
“If you sleep in your room, then you don’t have to be fast,” Iruka scolded, “Come on, I’ll buy you breakfast.”
By the time they arrived at the academy any lingering squirrely-ness from Naruto had disappeared, though he passed out at his desk nearly as soon as he sat down. He looked a bit rough from his night in the tree but not in a way that was unusual. Iruka wondered how often he truly stayed in his apartment. Naruto’s apartment was not in a particularly nice area of town, it would not be unbelievable to see a number of horrible events pushing the child from his residence.
He was pulled from the downward spiral of his thoughts as Uchiha Sasuke entered the classroom. The dark-haired boy squinted, disgruntled at Naruto’s sleeping form, apparently surprised to find he was the second student to arrive and not the first.
“Good morning, Sasuke,” Iruka greeted.
Sasuke nodded solemnly to him as he took his seat and began his daily practice of glaring into the chalkboard as the class filled up. Iruka held back a sigh, it had been nearly half a year since the village had awoken absent of all but one Uchiha. The shift between the Sasuke of then and the Sasuke of present was somewhat subtle. Sasuke had always been focused and driven, serious despite his baby fat, doing his best to crush his smiles behind a haphazard mask of shinobi indifference as he chased headlong after the genius brother who had left him to drown in a lake of Uchiha blood. Now there were no smiles to smother, Sasuke’s childishness crushed to ash and the space filled by grim determination. There had been no pause in the wake of the Massacre, only a single-minded focus on gaining strength.
Just one more Konoha orphan hell bent on revenge. A tragedy in a sea of tragedies.
Shaking himself, Iruka returned to his preparations for class.
At lunchtime, Iruka shared with Naruto, who had brought nothing. This was not unusual; the teacher double packed his lunch for occasions like this.
“Naruto,” Iruka prompted, “Is there a reason you don’t want to sleep in your apartment?”
“What?” Naruto looked up from his food before quickly looking away. “No, it just gets boring in there sometimes… Besides, it’s good ninja training, right? Sleeping in trees and stuff.”
“Every ninja needs a safe home to return to.” Iruka frowned. “No one’s coming around to harass you, are they?”
Naruto snorted, “No one bothers me, I don’t even have to lock my door.”
“Naruto, please lock your door.”
“Why?”
“Because! Someone could come in while you’re sleeping! And if nothing else it’ll help me worry less.”
“Don’t worry! No one ever comes by.”
Iruka gave a long sigh. “Naruto, look at me.” He waited for the boy to look up before he continued. “Next time you stay out too late, please go home. And if you don’t want to go home, come to my apartment. It doesn’t matter how late it is, or why you don’t want to go home, I just want you to have a safe place to sleep. Okay?” Naruto had visited his apartment a number of times in the last year. Usually when Iruka suspected he had run low on food. He had never spent the night. He would stay long enough for dinner and see himself out whenever he decided it was time for him to be home, or wherever it was he slept…
Naruto nodded, wide eyed at the gesture before Iruka’s attention was called away by a suspicious gathering of children on the other side of the room. Never a good sign.
The rest of the day passed in relative normalcy. Naruto ran off after class, before Iruka could invite him over for dinner and he did not manifest on Iruka’s doorstep that night. Iruka hadn’t really expected him to. Despite all his bluster, Naruto still seemed somewhat skittish about spending too much time around his teacher outside of school. Like he was worried he was going to overstay his welcome and was trying to make Iruka’s good will last as long as possible.
Iruka tried not to worry about it as he graded papers late into the night.
It was three days before Iruka found himself laying in motionless tension, unsure of what had jarred him so suddenly awake. Maybe the rain battering his curtained window? It fell in heavy sheets from the heat stressed sky. That was the only sound out of place. His heartbeat stilled with the steady barrage of raindrops. Lifted from sleep by shinobi paranoia then. Annoying but not atypical.
As he felt sleep begin to creep back over his limbs, his eyes once again snapped open. Someone was knocking at his door. A faint sound, soft but frantic. Not the pounding he would expect in the path of a city-wide emergency, nor was it an ANBU at his window. No, this was an unofficial sound meant for only his ears. A personal emergency.
Pulling himself fully into consciousness, Iruka rolled from bed—kunai in hand—and slid though the shadows toward the door which had once again gone silent. Projecting out his chakra, he was surprised to find the shape of a familiar chakra signature, a deceptively large, swirling mess, retreating from his door.
Thoughts dropping from caution to alarm, Iruka threw open the door. The August heat rolled over him in a wave of sticky humidity.
"Naruto?" he called softly, following the path of the retreating blond under the dim external lights of his apartment complex.
Naruto startled, whipping around to face his academy teacher. He was soaked completely through, hair plaited against his face, and wearing what Iruka recognized as pajamas. He wasn't wearing shoes.
"Are you okay?" Iruka asked, "Did something happen?"
Naruto grimaced, his head moving from Iruka, to the stairs, and back again like he was deciding whether or not to flee. His disposition was unmistakably nervous, uncomfortable even.
"You shouldn't be out in this storm," Iruka said softly as the sky was fractured by sinewy channels of lightning.
"I just... I mean..." Naruto's words were lost in a roll of thunder loud enough to shake the ground below them. He turned, clearly ready to be banished away.
"I mean, you should come inside," the chunin clarified, holding out a hand to his hesitating student.
Naruto eyed the hand a moment before accepting it, allowing himself to be pulled into the cool sanctuary of the apartment, his bare feet tapping wetly against the hard wood of the floor.
"Hang on, let me get you a towel and then I'll fold down the futon." He left the blond shifting back and forth restlessly, returning moments later to hand off a towel and the smallest t-shirt he could find.
"Naruto, is everything alright?" he enquired again, busying himself with preparing the futon as Naruto dried his hair.
"I'm fine," came his muffled reply.
"You're sure?" He glanced over his shoulder. Naruto nodded but his face was scrunched in a way that was decidedly unsure. "You can talk to me, you know. I'm here to listen."
Naruto's expression grew stubborn. "It's just. You said I could stay the night if I ever wanted and I decided I wanted to," he huffed, arms crossed.
Iruka gave him a fond smile. "I did say that, didn't I? Of course, you're welcome to stay anytime." Part of him wanted to ask for some heads up for future nightly visits but he’d rather be jarred awake in the night than possibly dissuade the kid from showing up at all. "Now, time for bed, yeah?"
Naruto nodded, climbing on top of the futon.
"Alright, Naruto, I'm gonna ask you one more time: You're sure you're alright?"
"Yes," He whined.
“And your feet are okay? No cuts?” Naruto didn’t live particularly close and the streets—especially around his apartment—were not particularly clean.
“I’m fine, Iruka-sensei! Stop nagging me!”
"Fine, fine. It's my job to worry, you know? Goodnight. I'll see you in the morning." He turned to leave, hand sliding to the light switch.
"Iruka-sensei?"
"Yes?" He turned to catch Naruto's worried expression.
"Can you leave the light on?" He looked very small drowning in a pool of sheets and an overly large t-shirt. Too small for his age. Malnutrition small.
"Of course." He withdrew his hand from the switch. "Goodnight, Naruto."
"Night, sensei."
Returning to his room, Iruka rolled back into bed. He stared up at the ceiling, wondering what could have driven Naruto out of his apartment so late. Certainly nothing good. With that in mind, sleep seemed too much to hope for at the moment. He pulled at the curtain to his side, exposing a sliver of the night sky. He watched raindrops splatter against the glass for a long while before he was dragged back into unawareness.
When Iruka blinked himself awake, morning light warmed his face. He stared out into the orange glow of the morning sky. A dove cooed softly outside his window and the rain had stopped. Still, there was a lingering sense of wrongness that followed him into the light of day. Hauling himself upward, Iruka began to prepare for school.
Naruto was still asleep when he made his way into the living room. He was sprawled like a starfish in a whirlpool of sheets. Quietly as he could manage, the chunin went about readying breakfast. Waking Naruto and getting him to eat was somewhat of an ordeal, the boy was not a morning person. When it became apparent that Naruto was not going to get up on his own, Iruka lifted him from the blankets and set him down at the kitchen table. From there Naruto managed to shovel the food into his mouth, gradually becoming more awake as time went on.
“Ready to go?” Iruka asked when Naruto had finished his breakfast.
“Yeah,” Naruto said, rubbing his tired face.
“Alright, just one more thing. I want to add your chakra to my wards. That way next time you want to come over, you don’t have to knock.”
Naruto blinked up at him in shock. “Really? How do you do that?”
“Easy.” Iruka opened the front door before placing a hand to its center. He then pushed his chakra into the wood, allowing the hidden seal to illuminate. “When this seal detects my chakra, it activates a series of signals that temporarily disable my wards and unlock the door. All you have to do is pool a little bit of chakra into your palm and place it here.” He nodded to a circle at the bottom of the seal. “Then it’ll work for you too.”
“I get it!” Naruto beamed, holding up his hand and screwing his face in concentration.
“Just a little bit,” Iruka warned, slightly worried his door was about to be blown to pieces by the force of Naruto’s chakra and his lack of control.
“I got it!” Naruto scoffed, reaching out a hand to the seal. It activated before he even touched the wood, glowing dimly in the morning light, the symbols twisting for a moment before falling still.
Iruka caught his hand before it could touch the door. “Nice, you did it. But you were pushing through so much chakra it was jumping outside your body. You still need to work on your control, but let’s give the door a test.” He pulled the door shut, allowing the lock to snap into place. “Just put one hand on the door and the other on the knob. You don’t have to push chakra into it. After you hear the lock turn, you can open it.”
Naruto put his right hand to the door and his left to the knob. There was a soft click and when he twisted the knob, the door came open without protest.
“Perfect,” Iruka gave Naruto’s hair a ruffle. “Now you don’t have to wait on me to hear you, alright?”
“Yeah!” Naruto grinned.
“Alright, climb on then,” Iruka said, kneeling down. “I’m not letting you walk across town barefoot.” He waited for Naruto to climb onto his back before standing and using a Body Flicker Jutsu to land in front of Naruto’s apartment.
“I expect you to be there by the time class starts, okay?”
“Yes, Iruka-sensei,” Naurto groused, though he looked pleased.
“And next time you should bring a change of clothes, and some shoes. You shouldn’t go walking around barefoot in the city.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Naruto waved him off, yanking open his apparently unlocked apartment.
“And lock your door when you leave!”
At that Naruto only laughed as Iruka watched him disappear behind the door. Rolling his eyes, Iruka turned toward the stairwell. As he moved, his attention caught on a civilian standing on the other end of the hallway. The man was staring directly at him with a look of disgust. The chunin startled, it was a look he recognized, having seen it often directed at Naruto. A year ago, Iruka would have looked at the kid in the same way. His stomach turned at that. Shameful. That was all he could think. But that was then, all he could do now was make up for his past failings. Now he was there if Naruto needed him, regardless of what this random prick thought.
Upon eye contact the man had averted his gaze, not out of shame, his disposition indicated more that Iruka was not worth his attention. Fine, that was probably for the best. Iruka pulled his glare away from the man and ambled off toward the academy.
He had more pressing things to worry about.